Jean–Luc, Future Ghost

She was going to be named Jean–Luc but she was not going to join the fleet.

Instead, she’d build the first starship to take us out of this galaxy;we’d test this simulation with cardboard boxes in the yard—the adventures would end with peanut cookies, lepat pisang,and steamed chive dumplings as a reward for saving humanityfrom the impact of imploding planets.

I would adjust your pigtails and your hand–embroidered dungarees,Jean–Luc with sharp, inquisitive eyes and bandaged knees,a tomboy like your mother occasionally was in hervacillations between states of ontic presentation.

Like her, you contain the dreams of frontiers unfolding from frontiersa fractal loop of infinite discoveries.

You were conceived only in my mind on the day I was frozen with fright(a routine and precautionary medical examinationto root out hereditary demons within my blood)my entire form petrified in confusion and despairat possibilities I had not wanted to consider,and decisions I was not ready to make.